Exposure to chemical warfare agents (CWAs) continues to be a significant concern for both military and civilian populations. The potential for exposure to CWAs exists from multiple arenas including terrorist threats, demilitarization operations for the destruction of chemical stockpiles, and military battlefield contact.
Determination of whether an exposure to CWAs has occurred is of critical importance. In particular, determining the presence, identity, and level of exposure to organophosphonate nerve agents can be important in responding to an exposure. Organophosphonate nerve agents degrade into alkyl methylphosphonic acids which can be detected from liquid samples. Previous studies have shown alkyl methylphosphonic acids to be present in the urine of humans exposed to organophosphonate nerve agents. However, levels of alkyl methylphosphonic acids may diminish significantly over a relatively short time. Current methods of determining exposure to organophosphonate CWAs from the field involves shipping refrigerated liquid samples or freezing samples on dry ice to an analytical facility. Such methods are costly, require specialized packaging, and are not suitable to many types of transportation. Thus, sample collection techniques which preserve the sample for analysis and reduce the need for specialty packing are needed.